Last week we said the setting for the coming of the Holy Spirit was and is worship. The New Testament commands believers to gather for worship on a weekly basis. God says in Hebrews: Don't give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing. Corporate worship is not optional. It's a command because worship is what you and I were created and designed to do. God gave you a mind to know him, heart to love him, lips to sing his praises. When the church is gathered together worshiping God, and loving each other, we are a living model of heaven. That's what the local body is for, to reflect the kingdom of heaven to the world. So when you worship you don't watch like a movie critic. You participate. You pray the prayers. You focus and listen to the readings and sermon with your mind. You sing the songs. You receive the body and blood of Christ. You come to Church like an athlete comes to a game ready to give God all you have: all your heart, mind, and strength and ready to love your brother and sister as Jesus has loved you. You come here ready to give yourself as a living sacrifice.

 

Now, let's open out bibles to Acts 2 and look at verses 2-3. The disciples were together worshiping and, “Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. (Acts 2:2-3)

 

So let's set ourselves down in the room. The disciples are praising Go d and they hear a sound, not a gradually rising sound. It came “suddenly”. It wasn't like the sound of a gentle breeze that tinkles wind-chimes. It was the sound of a violent wind. Some translations have “mighty rushing” wind. Think hurricane. One moment everything is normal. The next moment, a storm.

 

Who remembers what Jesus told Nicodemus? Nicodemus, a Pharisee, was one of Jesus' secret followers. Nicodemus hid his faith from his Pharisee friends. One night he snuck out to meet Jesus, under the cover of darkness. Jesus told him that he must be born again. Nicodemus was freaked out. He'd never heard anything like that in his life. He asked “Do you mean that literally?” No, Jesus said, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” You don't need to be physically born again but spiritually born again. You're dead in sin and need to be made alive by the Holy Spirit. “The wind,” Jesus said, “blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” Jesus points to wind as a sign of the Holy Spirit who brings life.

 

Wind, like the breath of God, that he breathed into the flesh of Adam when he formed him from the dust. Like the breath of wind coming from the Heavens in Ezekiel's vision that rattles the valley of dry bones and raises them to life. The Spirit is the wind or the breath that makes the Word of God a living Word. All scripture, Paul says, is God-breathed…it has life, it has divine power. The Spirit is the life-giving breath of God.

 

The wind the disciples heard is the sound of the coming of the Spirit. The Church is being made alive in Acts 2. The disciples, in and of themselves, dead bones, are being indwelled and filled and reborn with the breath, the Spirit, the power of God.

 

And with the sound of rushing wind came “what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on them.” (v.3) Now be careful. The text doesn't say fire literally came down on their heads. It says they saw “what seemed” to be tongues of fire. Wind is the sign of the breath of God, new life. Fire, is the sign of God's cleansing and judging power. The prophet Malachi foresaw that one day the Lord will come but “who” he asks, “can endure his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner's fire.” (Malachi 3:2) John the Baptist, preparing the way for the coming of Christ says that when he comes, he won't just baptize with water, he won't just dunk you in a river or pour water over your head. John says, “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand and he will clear the threshing floor, gathering up his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” (Matthew 3:11-12). Here, in Acts, this fire, the refining fire of the Holy Spirit comes to the Church and rests on the Disciples.

 

The Spirit comes then with two signs: wind and fire. He brings new life and he brings cleansing, conviction and judgment. He comes to rest on the disciples after they've seen Jesus rise from the dead and placed their trust in him as their living Lord and Savior, not before. Faith came first, then the Spirit. The Holy Spirit does not come to everyone in Jerusalem . He comes to those who believe. And we see that he comes to them both as individuals, the fire rests on them, and he comes to them as a body gathered to worship in the name of Jesus Christ. He still comes in the same way today.

 

When an individual comes to faith in Jesus Christ, The Spirit comes to that person and breathes life into his dead spirit. The individual who was once dead to God in his sins is made alive as the Spirit breaths God's life into him. The individual's heart is stirred, mind changed, and his will becomes willing so that, though still a sinner, he wants to be with Christ, and he wants to be like Christ. The Spirit replaces a dead cold heart of stone with a heart of flesh. Has this happened to you? This is why the bible says that when someone says, yes, I believe in Jesus Christ, but there is no change of life, no transformation over time, that that person has likely not truly come to faith because if you come to faith, God changes you and transforms through the Holy Spirit. Has your heart changed? Do you love Jesus and long to please him? Has your mind changed? Do you care about what he says and want to know him and his commands? Has your behavior changed? Do you still do the very same things with the same enthusiasm that you did before? If so then there's reason to question whether you've truly given your heart to Christ or whether this is all a charade.

 

The Spirit comes with breath and fire, bringing life and burning away the dross and the chaff. He burns away your impurities. It's tough. It hurts. It involves being judged and convicted by the spirit. Who here knows what it is to be convicted? You're reading your bible. You're sitting in church. You read a passage or the preacher says something and you kind of shrink down in your pew, “That's me. I do that. I think that way.” That's conviction. That is the fire of the Spirit judging you and burning away the impurities in your heart. It's painful. But it's a good pain. Don't run from it. Don't turn the channel or the page or find another church that makes you feel comfortable. Conviction tells you that he's in there doing his work, making you holy.

 

The Spirit also comes to the Church. In Acts verses 2-3, the Church is made up of all who've surrendered their lives to Jesus Christ and follow his teachings. What was true then is true now. The Church is the body of all those who've committed their lives to Jesus Christ. In Acts 2:2-3, the entire Church was gathered in one room. Today, the Church is not exclusively found in any one gathering or building or denomination. It stretches across time and space, heaven and earth. It is a people indwelled by the One Spirit and bound together by him in One Person, Christ, under one Truth found in the scriptures. When you meet a believer from Africa or from Asia or from the Methodist Church or the Presbyterian Church you're also meeting with someone who belongs to this universal Church. Everyone who's truly turned his or her life over to Christ, regardless of denomination or affiliation, is part of this invisible spiritual Body that spans the globe and reaches from heaven to earth.

 

But when people say the word “Church”, they aren't usually talking about that universal invisible body. They usually mean a gathering of people in a particular place, like Good Shepherd. In Acts, verses 2-3 a body of believers was gathered in one place when the Spirit came. And Jesus promised that where two or more are gathered in his name he will be present with them (Matthew 18:20 ) through the Holy Spirit. He was there in Acts verses 2-3 and he is here and now. When a group of Christians commit to Christ, to proclaim the Gospel of salvation, to teach his Word and live out his commands, in other words, gathered in his name, the Holy Spirit comes and makes his home and same things happen there, in the gathered body, that happen in an individual who comes to faith. The Spirit indwells. The Spirit comes in accordance with Christ's promise and the wind and the fire of the Spirit is brought to bear. Things happen.

 

A church goes from being a place where people are focused on themselves to a place where people are focused on Christ. From a place where people are worried about the building or the various guilds or the service times or the coffee hour, or the color of the carpet, a tired comfortable sleepy old place where people say walk around saying: this is our church, this how we do things at our church we want our church to be this way or that way, to a church that recognizes the fact, this is not our church at all. This is Christ's Church. We are here for Christ, to be about Christ, to proclaim Christ to seek Christ and to Worship Christ and everything that hinders that must go. The Spirit brings life and conviction and life and conviction bring change. And this makes some people happy and it makes others unhappy. This is why Christ said: I didn't come to bring peace, I came to bring division, because the moment his truth is heard and received, the fire and wind kick up and the old nature of the place begins to fight against the new life being brought in through the Spirit. So things get messy and tumultuous and if they didn't, we'd have something to worry about. It's a sign that the Spirit is at work purifying and cleansing and transforming and bringing new life to a body so that it looks more and more like the body of Christ. The church is being made holy.